| ECS PN2-SLI2+ (V1.0) nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
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Overclocking:
This review would not be complete without an attempt to overclock the Intel E6400 Conroe processor coupled to the ECS PN2-SLI2+. With reports all over the web of the E6400 processors reaching speeds in excess of 3.0GHz, we expected (and achieved) a similar overclock on our test system. Once a sufficient overclock of 3.05GHz was reached and deemed stable with multiple iterations of OCCT, SP 2004 Orthos Edition, and SiSoft Sandra, the test system was benchmarked accordingly.
Overclocking the test system was performed by setting the FSB and Memory to "Linked and Sync'ed Mode". Then we set out to determine the maximum (stable) system front side bus speed. In our tests the FSB (QDR) reached 1525MHz before the system started to exhibit stability problems.
To reach the 3.05Ghz overclock on this system voltages were increased to several components. The processor voltage was increased from 1.28v to 1.325v. The CPU FSB was set to 1.3v. The NVIDIA nForce SPP (Northbridge) was also increased to 1.4v. The memory however remained at its rated voltage of 2.2v throughout all tests.
Increasing the system voltages did result in the processor temperatures increasing substantially. Although we wished to push our test system further the stock Intel heatsink was holding this system back from further speeds. When the processor was heavily loaded, the temperatures hovered in the high 70°C range, and several times reached 80°C. Reports on the web suggest at 80°C the Intel Conroe processors will begin throttling down to protect themselves from burning up. If you perform a quick search of other Internet sites you will see others claiming much higher overclocks (in excess of 3.5GHz) when better cooling solutions such as the Tuniq Tower 120 were used. We believe with better cooling and higher rated memory the ECS PN2-SLI2+ would easily support higher overclocked speeds. More cooling options for the southbridge on this motherboard wouldn't hurt either.
For more tips and suggestions about overclocking the ECS PN2-SLI2+ (and Intel Core 2 Duo processors) we suggest referring to the NVIDIA 680i SLI Overclocking Guide (pdf).
Testing and Benchmarking:
To adequately test this system, a combination of synthetic benchmarks and real-world 3D gaming tests were conducted. Each benchmark was run in two different modes: at default processor and bus speeds and at overclocked settings. Default speeds on this test system constituted a front-side bus speed of 1066MHz, and a total clock speed of 2.13 GHz. Once overclocked, the system speed was 1525MHz FSB, for a total clock speed of 3.05 GHz. The test system listed below was setup with Microsoft Windows XP SP2 (with all of the latest patches installed), DirectX 9.0c, and ATI Catalyst v7.1 videocard drivers.
» Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13 GHz Processor (Overclocked to 3.05 GHz)
» Tested with stock Intel processor heatsink
» ECS PN2-SLI2+ (v1.0) NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
» 2 GB (2x1) Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 DDR2 Memory (4-4-4-12, default timings)
» ATI Radeon X850XT 256 MB Videocard
» OCZ Evostream 720W Power Supply
» Antec Performance One - P160 MidTower Case
» 1x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA2 16 MB 400 GB Hard disk (model: ST3400620AS)
» 2x Optical devices (CD-RW, DVD-ROM)
» 1x Floppy diskette drive
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